Spiritual
Psychology is the process of integrating the body, mind, and spirit. There are six basic
elements that are the source for all other aspects within our reality. These
elements are Spirituality, Creativity, Psychology, Body Therapy, Culture, and
Human Ecology.These elements are
all based in Spirituality that is outside of any organized religion. Within all
patriarchal systems religion supports the notion that the Church will be the
source to God. From this perspective the masses no longer have a direct personal
connection to God for truth. This can open a person to be manipulated for the
gain of those who tell you what “the” truths are. What you choose to call
this source is your choice. This source is not based in our cultural constraints
of a particular sex, gender, skin color, or orientation. This direct connection
to source allows no one to control another’s destiny. These six elements are
the basis of human beings as they relate to: Systems Theory;
Self-Transcendent Systems;
Open Learning Systems.

Human beings
are complex systems that are interconnected with other internal and external
aspects. A Spiritual Psychology counselor or teacher must be fully conscious
themselves to be able to fully assist others in awakening and healing. To be
fully conscious requires one to be fully functional. This requires one to be
free of all constraints that they were enculturated with that go against their
internal nature. What is required to remain conscious is to be in a constant of
state of conscious growth.

The premise of
a Spiritual Psychology is that Spirit is in everything. Spirit is based in
unconditional love and is supportive of each of us all the time. As Spiritual
beings we are all endowed with unlimited creativity which comes through us
effortlessly to support ourselves in life. Our bodies house our feelings, which
act to guide us through reality and act as a vessel for Spirit.Each person learns differently based on her or his uniqueness. When we
learn in our own unique way, we can then access higher levels of intelligence
that assist us in understanding the many aspects of our internal and external
realities. Understanding that there is no one right culture paves the way for
different ways of knowing, learning, and being. Awareness of enculturation
allows oneself to shift from an external cultural belief system of being to an
internal authentic system of being. Lastly, we are all connected with nature.
Our well being and survival are dependent on this living system that surrounds
us. Ensuring that we protect and nurture our inner nature guarantees that we
will protect and nurture our outer nature.

A key issue
that goes unnoticed within psychology is the cultural trance we are all

in.
Once we awaken from this trance we can then begin
to discover who we really. Too often in any endeavor we look for a finished
product. The human being is a work of art in constant progress. I am reminded of
a quote that portrays this eloquently. “Perfection isn’t a destination,
it’s a journey.” In general, societies are not conducive to change,
especially when those changes move a person out of the cultural norms of
behavior and beliefs. That is not to say that mainstream therapy has no
value. I do believe we are always moving forward in a constant state of change,
whether we are aware of this or not. At some point a client becomes confused
internally because what they are beginning to feel doesn’t resonate with the
therapist. Discrepancies are often dismissed or minimized. Issues can and are
often skirted around by a therapist. If a therapist has unresolved issues and a
client brings that issue up, the therapist will downplay it to the degree of
his/hers discomfort. One of the graces of healing has to do with becoming more
aware of when something doesn’t quite feel right or match a person's
experience or knowledge. This allows the client to seek out other more qualified
therapists or become their own healer. It comes down to knowing when to move on.
In my own life I realized that it was time to move on. As I became more aware
and knowledgeable I began to notice discrepancies and when they were not
addressed, I knew it was time to go.My
own exploration included teaching myself through readings and counseling. At
some point I realized that I had to take over my own therapy due to a lack of
qualified people. I think one of the healthiest things anyone can do is to learn
how to trust their own intuition. I have used intuition as a tool to assist me
in leading me to those people, places, and things that will best assist my
healing. It is through our exploration that we learn to find out what works best
for us. My intuition led me to career and life counseling, Aikido, and a body
therapy called Rolfing. I started to open up and grow in ways that therapy
didn’t even touch. Later I enrolled in college to pursue a degree in
psychology.

It was during
this time that I began to really see the effects of culture on human beings. My
anthropology teacher acknowledged many of the discrepancies I had been feeling.
One day in class a realization surfaced about how culture forces people to
conform. It was here that it dawned on me that psychologists were often causing
harm to others who were trying to wake up. Psychologists are enculturated like
everyone else in mainstream culture. Enculturation can effect conscious and
unconscious pressure to conform to mainstreamed cultural beliefs. Those seeking
counseling are quite often limited or kept from becoming conscious. This occurs
with Caucasians, but more so with minorities. This is a major reason why most
minorities don't seek counseling with Caucasian psychologists. At this point I
all but gave up on being a therapist. Synchronicity intervened and made me aware
of Fairhaven College, where I could customize my own degree program. My
intuition told me to create my own degree program in spiritual psychology.

Critical
thinking is our biggest ally in our waking up process. One of the obstacles to
critical thinking in the educational systems is that enculturation forces
limitations that limit the effectiveness of critical thinking skills. This
occurs with administrators, teachers, and students. Enculturation is a very
powerful force to be reckoned with. Moving beyond our own beliefs is difficult
enough. Trying to move beyond mainstream culture is a whole other issue. College
can be a wonderful place to learn if one has enough awareness to think for
themselves. Curiosity, thinking skills, and a healthy does of self-esteem and
self-confidence can be allies to overcome any obstacle. I found the classroom
experience helpful to find my own answers through dialoguing with student and
teachers. This process was invaluable, but only if you engage in the learning
process. Many just sit and listen and question nothing. At some point you begin
to see the similarities among the various studies such as cultural anthropology,
political economy, philosophy, art history, creative arts, sign language, logic,
history, astronomy, and even math.

One of the
most damaging things that reductionism has done to our thinking to seeing only
each individual part. What we need to realize is that parts are part of
something much larger. This allows us to see the many different perspectives in
any given situation. This is one of the flaws of ego and of the cultural trance,
it only allows limited perspectives. Another issue that is missing from critical
thinking has to do with thought processes in general. We are led to believe that
it is something you do to a point on a given subject. The reality of truth is
that it constantly changes and develops as we become more conscious. It is
ridiculous to assume this limited idea. The process of learning requires that we
take all that we read, discuss, and experience and analyze it through critical
thinking. The next step requires that we run it through all our other knowledge,
wisdom, and experience and look for discrepancies or connections.Intuition can be an invaluable ally in sifting through all this knowledge
to discern half-truths and reintegrate them back into whole truths. I trust my
Spirit will lead me to sources of information that I need to know to find these
truths.

We know that
intuition works. Studies have confirmed that it is a right hemisphere operation,
the right brain, where science has labeled it "the irrational or
non-rational mind. There is a cultural stigma attached to the right brain of
inferiority versus the superior intellect of the left brain. In recent decades
research is shedding light on the consistency of the validity of the right
brain. The answers people access through the right brain are quite often
correct. This process is often more connected to higher truths that are often
over-ruled by our intellectual brain; ego. No one in science can explain how
this intuition works, but it works. We know without knowing how we know. In my
own process I allow my intuition to lead me. I think that curiosity and
intuition are closely related and complimentary. I am drawn to something and I
explore it. In exploring this person, place, or thing I come away with an
understanding. I usually find out afterwards that what I was curious about was
This direct experience to learning is superior to book learning. Say for
example, I am interested in understanding what course work will create my degree
in Spiritual Psychology. I explore what classes are available. I find what it is
that I am drawn to. Sometimes it is an interest of mine, other times it is some
intuitive feeling that I know I must follow. The classes always fit in some way,
offering me perspectives I wouldn’t have thought about prior to the class.
This has happened throughout my education at Fairhaven. As I look back on my
life I can see that all things played their part in creating who I am now and
getting me to this point. I have faith in this process and I am never misled. I
remember being asked at the start of my Fairhaven College concentration seminar
to come up with questions for what I wanted to learn. This went totally against
what I had been nurturing all along. I am reminded of something a counselor said
to me, “the kinds of questions you ask will determine the answers you get.”
If I ask questions then those questions become my guide as to where I am going
to go. However, in listening to what feels right, I am led by Spirit. Spirit
transcends ego, it is not limited by cultural beliefs and limitations. To become
whole I must trust my Spirit to guide me beyond the limits. This concept works
by choosing classes I am drawn too, not the ones I am supposed to take because
everyone else has done it this way. Once in that class I become aware of themes
and ideas that I was unaware of before. The themes and ideas then become what I
ask questions about. The other route decides the direction I will go. If I
don’t want to deal with certain issues my unconscious self will lead me in the
other direction. The ego leads me to answers within cultural boundaries. Spirit
leads me beyond those boundaries to greater truths.

Traditional
education offers some degree of diversity, but it does not discuss the
interconnectedness of these various disciplines. It wasn’t until I attended
Fairhaven that I began to realize that this is the root cause of being
disconnected. The disciplines, these facts, are disconnected. A Spiritual
approach to attaining a degree in psychology must include course work in various
forms of cultural studies, creativity, body therapy, human ecology, psychology,
and Spirituality. This interdisciplinary study allows a person to regain their
own body, mind, and Spirit connection, to attain the necessary wisdom to help
others become whole. A person can assist others in healing only if they have the
necessary awareness, knowledge, and tools to become whole. One cannot heal cross
culturally unless they completely understand their own culture’s strengths and
weaknesses. The process of spiritual psychology differs greatly from modern
psychology. The field of psychology focuses mostly on the Western notion of
objectivity and rational methods to find a truth. Its focus continues to narrow
into the analytical and statistical realm. Spiritual Psychology uses both
Eastern and Western methods to become aware of truths. This blending of
perspectives balances and strengthens the whole of truth and reality. In order
to transcend ego one has to delve into the intuitive brain. One can see where
thought itself is limiting. One only has to look at what has been done with this
context with racism, sexism, genderism, ageism, classism, homophobia, and
materialism. The rational mind has to see it before it will believe it. This
idea that the proof has to be there before we will believe it causes some
problems. If we can't prove something then it is not valid. This becomes a folly
because much of what science is founded on is theory. none of it can be proved,
but somehow it works. Feelings, emotions, and intuitions are all synonymously
connected together. They offer what I call a spiritual connection to higher
states of knowing. I believe that this right brain is far superior to the left
brain perspective. ultimately it comes down to being guided by the right brain
and the left brain is used to construct or deconstruct. The left brain on its
own can be literally blinded by its limitations of enculturation. These
limitations are like a software program that runs on exactly the parameters it
is programmed for and nothing else. The right brain acts as thesystems manager who notices something not functioning properly. Cultures
role acts as the programmer who is unable to see the outcomes of its
programming. This is the dilemma that needs to be addressed and healed.

I believe this
crucial problem is the door that shuts out our awareness, our ability to be
conscious of what it is we are doing. When we don’t have that left and right
brain dialogue, which is called whole brain thinking, we aren't able to access
consciousness. If we don’t have access to consciousness then we aren't able to
move into enlightenment.

Western
society "thinks" its conscious and enlightened. An enlightened society
does not allow poverty, hunger, homelessness, and inequality of any kind exist.
Nor does an enlightened society allow its members to destroy the very air,
water, and soil needed to ensure their survival.

Cultural
studies are crucial to begin examining the culture we live in. In exploring
other cultures we begin to see differences and learn why they are that way.
Requiring one to be immersed in another culture for a year or more would awaken
this cultural bias. Cultural studies examine the infrastructure, structure, and
superstructure of other cultures as well as our own. These structures are what
control societies. Studying the politics, economics, religion, and customs can
reveal a great deal about the limits of a culture and what it is unconscious
about. There are also the positive aspects of other cultural ways of living,
being, or doing that would be beneficial. This is why diversity is so crucial to
being conscious. Other cultures are mirrors for us to see our reflection of what
we like or dislike in our own culture.Having
counselors and teachers with diverse backgrounds would offer different
perspectives to learn from. The more perspectives an individual has allows them
to make informed decisions on what is right for them to become conscious. We
become conscious through the process of trial and error, of seeing how our
choices work, and in seeing how other cultural choices work.

The
different perspectives of creativity must be included in Spiritual Psychology.
These perspectives include classes in playing with various forms. These forms
might include diverse types of art, music, writing, playing, dancing, singing,
and drama. Classes in art appreciation, art history, creative visualization, and
creativity itself, would assist in conceptualizing the importance of creativity
as a whole. Creativity would also require us to focus on how ourselves, others,
and the world are constantly in a state of creation and to understand this
process through direct observation and participation. We are all born with
creativity from creativity itself. We are made out of the elements of the
Universe itself, for all of the elements have come from the stars. Culture
stifles creativity for various reasons in many people. To become fully
functional requires one to have full access to their creativity. This allows
them to create ways to support and nurture themselves in the world. Creativity
is also a way of being able to express oneself in ways that move beyond the
limitations of language. Creativity is a healing power as well. This source of
creative inspiration is our indwelling direct source of power from the spiritual
realm. Every day we create our lives by what we think about and what we choose
to create. If we have unlimited creativity, then we can have unlimited lives.

Reconnecting
to our bodies is an essential part of our healing. When the mind is joined with
the body, space is opened for greater knowing and healing. This opening allows
Spirit to enter our lives more fully to assist in becoming more conscious of who
we are and what our purpose in life is. There are many types of body therapy
from which to choose. Some examples are Rolfing, CONTINUUM,
Alexander Technique,
Somatics, Feldenkrais, Holotropic
Breathwork, and Rebirthing. Each person must be allowed to intuitively find what works best for him or
her. Bodywork allows the body to discharge repressed feelings, emotions, stress,
and trauma that are caused in all cultures. Bodywork opens up the body to
integrate with the mind so as to make space for Spirit to enter. This is what
allows one to become conscious and aware. Other areas I consider as both
bodywork and spiritual, are martial arts like Aikido, Yoga, Tai Chi and Qi Gong.

Spirituality
is not discussed in much of modern psychology. Jeanne Achterberg said, “Soul
loss is regarded as the gravest diagnosis in [Shamanism], being seen as a cause
of illness and death. Yet it is not referred to at all in modern Western medical
books.” To understand spirit is to understand our Self. There are many ways to
understand and hear Spirit. Spirit can communicate to us in words, images, and
dreams. It can guide us through intuition and synchronicity. Spirit is our inner
guide to understanding our Self and the world. It is essential that we have our
connection to spirit. My studies will continue to explore how this connection is
broken. I am interested in how enculturation causes disruption in the
individual's sense of self and how that causes one to seriously doubt
themselves. If this doubt is not conquered it can lead to fear which is an
inhibitor of consciousness. I would like to further study how individuals can
doubt and ponder without fear. It is important to understand that fear is a
creation of culture. Being able to doubt and ponder is necessary to move into
greater understanding. Various forms of inner work must be taught. This inner
work allows the mind to be stilled to hear the inner voice of Spirit. This can
be taught through diverse types of meditation, walking, prayer, fasting, vision
quests, creative arts, shamanism, dream work, martial arts, Yoga, Tai Chi, or Qi
Gong. In the past culture has taught me to follow the path of others. If I am to
become whole, it is of utmost importance to listen to my inner knowing. An
interesting facet of Spirituality is that it is all things and one can access it
through all things. All the more reason to interconnect and synthesize
disciplines and perspectives.

Psychology
plays an important part in understanding the mind, behavior, perception and
consciousness. There are different perspectives to learn from such as
Cross-Cultural, Gestalt, Depth, Jungian, Freudian, Behavioral, Clinical,
Humanistic, Phenomenal, and Transpersonal. Currently, these are taught
separately, each vying for superiority over the other. Integration and
connection needs to occur within all these fields. They all offer different
perspectives integral to the whole. It is relevant to incorporate psychology
studies with this in mind and see the connections that link them. The study of
Whole Systems, Systems Theory, and Chaos Theory would shed light on this
paradox. Psychology deals with human beings. I don’t see where statistics have
any merit when the focus is supposed to be on healing a persons psyche.
Psychology today is a business that is used to regulate the minds of the members
of an enculturated society. What it does quite successfully is to assist people
in the process of coping. The problems that patients have are not dealt with at
the core issue. The focus is on the symptoms while the cause is dismissed. One
of the drawbacks to the psychology field is that it doesn’t make the
connection between disciplines and perspectives. what happens is that no
connections are made between the body, mind, creativity, spirituality, culture,
and human ecology. When viewed as separate distinct parts we are unable to see
the fully functioning mode of being. An example of this is the belief by most
people that certain people are born creative. Everyone is creative, we are born
with it, and we could not live without it.

The
study of Human Ecology brings awareness of nature to human beings. Our culture
has conditioned us to view ourselves as separate from nature. This separation
has caused considerable damage to the environment we depend on for our basic
needs of air, water, and food. Human beings have been damaged as well from this
separation because we are part of nature to. There is much to be learned about
how nature can nurture us with more than our basic survival needs. Nature can
heal our emotions and reconnect us to our spirit. Nature is our teacher if we
are willing to listen, watch, and learn. Human Ecology classes teach awareness
of what humanity is doing to the environment that it is part of. Human Ecology
teaches about different types of gardening, how to compost and care for the
soil, and conservation methods. New ways of living are explored and discussed.
Current issues that are detrimental to the environment are brought to a
conscious level. This allows us to change cultural patterns that threaten our
basic survival needs. This field helps build relationships by teaching people to
work together for common causes. It also teaches us to revere the Earth and our
fellow human beings too.

All
of these together open the door to consciousness. When we stop separating these
areas of study, human beings will stop being separated in body, mind, and
spirit. It will no longer be possible to remain unconscious, anymore than it is
impossible not to breathe and nourish ourselves. This is what I see as Spiritual
Psychology and its role to teach response-ability to humanity. I believe
strongly in teaching people to be empowered, not in coping amidst unconscious
survival mode. Perhaps now is the time to begin take life less seriously with a
lot more lightness. Incorporating more joy, laughter, play, humor, ecstasy, and
reflection into our daily perspectives. Taking things too seriously can cause a
person to be shut off from other perspectives. History is full of seriousness
and the value in letting go of tension would set the body, mind, and spirit
free.

Brief
account of origin and history of term and related matters:

The term
psychology comes from: (Greek: psyche, logos; Latin: psychologia; French:
psychologie; German: Seelenkunde).
The term psychology itself is rooted in Aristotle’s
time. Aristotle wrote his treatise Peri
Psyches (“De Anima”) which was the universal template for psychology for
two thousand years. Most of what he wrote of is still relevant today. E.F.
Schumacher, in his book “A Guide For the Perplexed” states that psychology
is probably one of the oldest sciences and regrettably a forgotten science:

‘Traditional
psychology, which saw people as “pilgrims” and “wayfarers” on this earth
who could reach the summit of a mountain of “salvation,”
“enlightenment,” or “liberation,” was primarily concerned not with sick
people who had to be made “normal” but with normal people who were capable
of becoming, and indeed destined to become, supernormal.’

This idea of
psychology as a tool to assist others to higher spiritual levels,
“enlightenment,” was shunned for the pursuit of understanding the phenomena
of the mind; how the mind operates, processes within its states of
consciousness. During the Middle Ages philosophy and reason, the parents of
psychology were all but obliterated by credulity and conjecture. The "Dark
Ages" of Christian thought was merciless on anyone who would dare to think,
question, explore, discuss, disagree, doubt, or show love openly. Those who did
were tortured, burned, and or imprisoned. Around the end of the sixteenth
century the term "psychology" came into use by Goclenius Casmann, who
wrote “Psychologia Anthropologica” in 1594. Later in the eighteenth century
Ch. Wolff popularized the usage of the term psychology (Lande). Psychology has
been in a continual state of crisis. As it grew out of philosophy it struggled
to become a science. For security it needed physics and medicine. Physics gave
it the idea of the parts instead of the whole. Medicine gave it the model of
pathology. Man was conceived to be a bundle of responses to stimuli. Behavior
needed to managed and controlled and so it became nothing more than segments,
experiences, and experiments. Today, psychology is realizing that the human
being is intrinsically complex. The focus is looking at this richness of being,
the power of the mind, emotions and feelings, and in consciousness itself. More
pathways are opening up in the field as people look for better ways to move
beyond the limited ways of thinking from the past (Lande 29).

The term
Spirit comes from: (Latin: spiritus, spirare, "to breathe"; Greek:
pneuma; French: esprit; German: Geist).
The term Spirituality comes from the word spirit. In psychology, the adjective
of spirit, “spiritual” is used to convey all that belongs to this higher
realm. Organized religion within a cultural context has regulated the masses to
limited ideologies. The regulation of personal belief is the basis of all
political structures that serve to have power over others. Religion has a
his-story of manipulating society for the gain of a small minority of
individuals. Many of these limiting beliefs still exist today. Patriarchy comes
into conflict with the true meaning of Spirituality by implying that religion
and spirituality are mutually one and the same.
Various religions continue to fight both verbally and physically as to the
rightness of the one true religion. Spirituality embraces unconditional love.
There are no conditions for being loved, we are born into "Original
Blessing." Conditional love is based in fear. This fear utilizes anger,
hate, and violence to coerce people into submission. Humility, shame, and guilt
are the tools used by those in power to control others. These types of religions
indoctrinate the unconscious masses that they are born into "Original
Sin," which requires them to
conform to the rules to be saved.

Various
individuals throughout the ages have discussed spirituality, such as Jesus,
Buddha, etc. Those in power have taken these figures and distorted their
teachings to manipulate the masses. This state of affairs has led to a belief
system that is no longer based on original teachings of equality and
unconditional love. This context doesn't allow the wholeness of Spirituality
into the patriarchal paradigm of church and state. We are taught that church and
state are separate. But, upon closer examination we can see that individuals
bring their personal religious beliefs into government and forge legal law based
on those beliefs. Spirituality in its truest form has never been exterminated
and never will. There is a distinction in what the definition of Spirituality
means. Within the confines of the cultural trance, Spirituality is mostly an
intellectual pursuit. Religions negative body image and the suppression of
sexuality, through shame and guilt, has effectively shut down most of the body's
feelings and emotions. This body politics has disconnected the body from the
mind. This leaves people to imagine Spirit because they are no longer able to
feel Spirits presence. Most rituals in religion have been created to disconnect
individuals from their direct connection to Spirit.

The
enlightened states of Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad, and other prophets specifically
came about from this connection of the body, mind, and Spirit. Through this
connection each of us has the ability to become enlightened. Consciousness is
best exemplified with the triangular model of self-actualization put forth by
Abraham Maslow. This model explained the required steps in our basic human needs
to move towards self-actualization or awareness. The responsibility of religion
within a cultural setting is to guide individuals to enlightenment. Instead,
religion teaches that very few people can attain enlightenment. There is a
cultural tendency to use the words awareness and consciousness in a limited
demeaning manner, as if to minimize the implications of what they imply. In
reality the process of awareness moves one towards consciousness and onto
enlightenment if we are willing to go forward past the walls of culture. This
process was accomplished by all the great prophets and mystics. An enlightened
society is nothing more than everyone being enlightened. It is the neurosis of
most cultures to believe that they are already enlightened. This is the
difference between what I consider Spiritual in the context of a Spiritual
Psychology.

In the context
of psychology as a science the first correlation with the Spiritual was in the
1700’s. Emanuel Swedenborg
wrote extensively of this particular spiritual context as it related to the
psychological well being of man. His writings discussed issues that are just as
relevant today about faith. In particular, Swedenborg pointed out the hypocrisy
of those in the church. His idea of Spirituality focuses on this body, mind, and
spirit connection. This association was not synthesized within the psychology
field because of the times. But, his writings and teachings had a large
following. Swedenborg ultimately called for a more honest and integral
Christianity and created a new church concept. Leon James
writes that Swedenborg couldn’t be included in the science of psychology
because he had no scientific basis (repeatability, measurement, and proof), and
that they were his personal visions. God, which is never provable and
repeatable, goes against the scientific paradigm. The negative biased scientists
were monists or materialists and expected proof of this spiritual world before
being accepted into science. James discusses the issue of scientific empiricism
stating:

"The
Writings of Swedenborg are totally unique in the history of science. Science has
always had two branches: theistic and atheistic. Until the 17th century just
about all the great scientists belonged to the theistic branch. Men like
Pythagoras, Euclid, Aristotle, Leibniz, Descartes, Newton, and Darwin -- through
whose work we have mathematics, physics, and biology, -- always assumed the
reality of God, of revelation through Holy Scriptures, and of a life after
death. They saw nature as a theater of physical matter and time that corresponds
and depends on an underlying, more real and 'substantive' world of spirit and
eternity in which God also ruled.

Beginning
with the 18th century (the Age of "Reason"), there was a political
reversal such that the atheistic branch of science became stronger, bolder and
more erratic. It was a climate in which political Marxism and artistic nihilism
were given birth. The modern era thus began in which, for the first time in
human history, theology and revelation were stripped of official authority; what
mattered most now was individuality and self-determination, unbound by
hereditary culture and unchecked by religious trues."

Swedenborg's
reputation was impeccable, with credentials as a member of Sweden's legislative
body, as a government mining consultant, as a writer, as an inventor of
significant engineering and navigational tools, and guest to many renowned
scholars and scientists. Even today his eyewitness reports meet stringent
scientific criteria. For three decades his spiritual observations were repeated
thousands of times. Even with all this Swedenborg knew that his findings would
be squelched and he predicted that they would eventually be accepted at some
future date. Today his system is considered useful in many areas of psychology;
in particular, the fields of psychotherapy, transpersonal and humanistic
psychology, and psychobiology. There continue to be revelations in the
Swedenborg writings that are calling for further studies. The scientific
communities are still resistant to embracing Swedenborg's findings. Leon James
points out that we are moving closer to merging spirit and science. A particular
incident that exemplifies this:

"A
contemporary Swedenborg scholar interested in medicine, Christen A. Blom-Dahl,
wrote about his excitement when in 1973, after years of reading Swedenborg, he
suddenly noticed that the character of the spirits Swedenborg encountered in
various parts of the body-regions, were in agreement with medical discoveries
about the function of these organs. But these discoveries were made more than
100 years after Swedenborg's death in 1771! Quoting from Blom-Dahl's The
Third Source
(still unpublished at the time of this writing in 1996)…"

We can see
that here the beginning of the connection between the spirituality and
psychology of man. It was not implicit in the body, mind, and spirit.

Seventy-one
years later William James
was born in 1842. His father was a believer of Swedenborg's teachings, who made
sure his children learned them. This ultimately influenced his life in later
years to pursue the "psychology of religion." James believed in the
direct religious experience and had no interest in going to a church and abiding
in ceremony as a substitute. He was not much for a religion that was taught from
an indirect knowing. James had his own mystical experiences that left him
profoundly moved, which motivated him to write at length about this in his book,
"The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). This book finalized his
interest in the psychology of religion. He described with rich concreteness,
evidence that religious experiences proved the existence of sources of energy
within ourselves that we could call upon in times of trouble.

James taught
physiology at Harvard College and eventually followed his passions to teaching
psychology. His interests focused on the physiological aspects, which was
considered revolutionary. This challenged the vested interests of the mind,
mainly theological, that dominated the colleges and universities of the United
States. Psychology ceased to be a mental philosophy and became a laboratory
science. The college contracted James to produce a textbook of psychology
entitled, "The Principles of Psychology." His book assimilated mental
science to the biological disciplines. Thinking and knowledge became instruments
in the struggle to live. His ideas made use of psychophysics (the study of
physical processes upon the mental processes) and defended, without embracing,
free will (Encyclopedia Britannica).

By the early
1900's we begin to move into the influence of Sigmund Freud on the field of
psychoanalysis. The academic world did not hold him in high esteem. In 1910 Carl
Jung split from Freud for
reasons having to do with Freud's attitude towards Spirit. Freud believed
anything spiritual related to repressed sexuality. In addition, Freud was also
placing personal authority above truth. Jung went on to work on his collective
unconsciousness ideas. Jung was very much interested in Spirituality and to his
credit he is one of the few leading experts on alchemy. His twenty-year
exploration of alchemy brought about the realization that its true focus was on
the transforming ignorance and darkness into knowledge and light .
Spirituality began to creep into the awareness of psychologists and
psychiatrists. The field continued to widen and separate from Freud with the
advent of the Neo-Freudians (1885-1960), which included the likes of Otto Rank,
Erik Erickson, Eric Fromm and Melanie Klein. This group emphasized healing the
individual through feelings, emotions, and cultural trauma. Many improvements
were made on Freud's work as well. B. F. Skinner came along in 1951 as a
behaviorist. Skinner believed that behavior was the only legitimate concern of
psychology. He saw behavior as something that could be seen, measured, predicted
and therefore open to empirical, systematic, hard science such as physics.
Skinner didn’t believe that feelings or objects of introspection were causes
of behavior. This focus remained influential for quite awhile.

Meanwhile,
incredibly rich, diverse views blossomed out of these conservative mindsets of
traditional psychology. The likes of Reality Therapy, Reichian Therapy,
Existential Analysis, Primal Therapy, Humanistic Psychology, Gestalt Therapy,
and Logotherapy, Psychodrama, Hypnotherapy, Megavitamin Therapy, Mind Expansion
Training, Scientology, Somatics, and Silva Mind Control. The study of the body
had begun in the early 1900's as well. People began seeing the connection to
emotional and physical well being in the body. These individual pioneers were
not necessarily trained in psychology either. Many realized the correlation
between the state of the mind and the state of the body (Johnson). I have
alluded to these early in this article. It wasn’t till 1975 that Robert Frager
created Transpersonal Psychology. Frager experienced the conventional approach
to psychology, and found it lacking and fragmented. Frager recalled the ancient
Greek system, which believed that education should account for all aspects of
the human experience. With this ideal, he created a school of psychology to
prepare psychologists in understanding human nature from an approach that
transcended the pathological and encompassed the whole human being. The
curriculum developed by Frager, faculty and students focuses on six core areas
of inquiry: the intellectual, emotional, spiritual, physical, social and
creative aspects of life.
Depth Psychology is very similar to Transpersonal Psychology. In addition to
these, there are other therapies that are growing in popularity such as Art
Therapy and Music Therapy.

While it is
promising that there is an expansion going on within the psychological arena,
there is no requirement for teachers, therapists, counselors, and students to do
therapy, bodywork, creative work, no cultural studies, no reconnecting to
Nature, nor looking into the Nature of Spirituality intellectually and directly
experiencing it. These teachers, therapists, and students are isolated indoors
mostly from the direct experience of life. Even today, psychoanalysis is still
considered the core of psychology. One cannot be a therapist, psychoanalyst, or
psychologist until they go through the indoctrination of the clinical psychology
or psychiatry programs. One cannot create a new field in psychology without this
clinical training. This has had a profound and limiting effect on the psychology
field. For it has effectively put the ideals of research before healing and it
has become the model to which truth comes from, as if direct experience itself
has no bearing. The template for research is based in, "seeing is believing
versus believing is seeing." Research is done in the context of deciding on
what the truth will be first and creating fixed criteria for experimentation.
This seems to mirror the need to control outcomes, which are the cultural
inhibitors of truth.I see research
as needing to be a process of being flexible with criteria. Following one line
of reasoning will give a limited outcome. If one is flexible it is possible to
become more aware of other perspectives. It is as if the research template
within the clinical setting has been fixed in a narrow groove, which controls
and limits perceptions and perspectives.

There is this
big blind spot that everyone avoids at all costs. Ego blocks recognition of
anything outside of the cultural belief system it holds to be its reality of
truth. This is what many call Satan, the devil, the dark side, hell, or the
unconsciousness of culture (Russell 143-44). There are some that believe this to
be the one and only sin. The formation of the ego comes about from the process
of enculturation. We learn to set aside our authentic self as children to learn
the rules of culture that are forced upon us. In his book, "Playing by
Heart," O. Fred Donaldson describes this process which he calls the
"Duchess' Game:"

'The
Duchess' Game is a way of being and acting based on the Duchess's Law from Alice
in Wonderland which states, "the more
there is of mine, the less there is of yours." The Duchess's Game is an
antagonistic encounter in which we succeed by defeating an opponent. This
"game" can be cynically expressed in a slightly different manner as
The Three Laws of Thermodynamics quoted by Dennis Overbye:

1. You can't win.

2. You can't break even.

3. You can't get out of the game.

In
this zero-sum game, everything including life itself can be won, lost, possessed
and awarded. It can be played anywhere and anytime, with balls, guns, and words
and on sports fields, corporate boardrooms, political arenas, international
battlefields, family living rooms, freeways, schoolrooms and playgrounds.

The
Duchess's Game is a shared value system between people who need a symbolically
and externally constituted sense of self worth-contest-and a society, which by
granting it to them, reduces them to playthings. The game is sustained by a
socio-economic, educational, and political philosophy, organized groups and a
code of contest ethics. This adversary system is accepted, in part, because it
has been an integral part of society for a very long time. So long, in fact,
that people both as individuals and as groups cannot conceive of any other way
of interacting. Throughout our history we have used one form of contest such as
the courts to try to remedy the failures of another contest system, such as
elections. We fundamentally believe in the efficacy of contests to cure social,
economic and educational problems. But one form of cancer does not cure another;
instead the patient now has two forms of cancer.'

This game is a
cross-cultural game in one form or another. What ultimately becomes of children
who live in these cultures is that they become emotionally and physically
traumatized over and over again. Donaldson says that the game is a self-defense
mechanism to culture. This implies that we create the game, as if it didn’t
exist in culture, as if culture and the game are not the same (Donaldson
65-100). I would describe the process as hypnotizing ourselves into going along
with the game (cultural rules) to survive. When this occurs our sense of self no
longer comes from us, but from an external source. The process of becoming
conscious is dehypnotizing ourselves or with the assistance of others who are
aware of this state of mind (Russell 85).

The field of
Psychology has two main responsibilities. The first is the focus of the healer
and the second as the teacher of healers in an educational setting. Out of these
two areas come all other fields of study. These two areas are where the programs
and templates for healing are taught, used, and refined in order to heal human
beings. It is disturbing that we call them clients or patients as if lowering
them to a less than human dimension. This is one of the dimensions of clinical
research that disagree with. Clinical approaches to healing are based on
research done in lab settings. Much like animal research where animals are
caged, humans are tested the same way under conditions that have little to do
with real life situations. This approach treats everyone as if they are the
same. Each person is distinctly different and requires different ways to heal.
These fields offer different viewpoints, paradigms if you will, on what
particular groups of people in academia and society "think" is the
truth about human beings. These fields of thought are exclusively limited to the
practitioners' field of study and do not include any other perspectives.These thoughts tend to be in line with cultural norms and beliefs. None
of these fields discuss, share, or learn amongst their counterparts which
include: Cognitive, Developmental, Behavioral, Social, Abnormal, Experimental,
Educational, Memory, Environmental, Population, Counseling, Physiological,
Adolescent, Cross-Cultural, Perception, Phenomenology, Psycholinguistics,
Learning, and Statistics. These are individual psychology's that I liken to
boxes that certain groups of people congregate and hold only their perspectives
to be the truth. If we are to really open up to being whole, the fields need to
unpack themselves out of their box and begin to synthesize, blend, share, learn,
and question together as a whole system. Human beings are not parts.

I see Spirituality as the template to apply equally to all of
these areas. Spirituality is the authentic self, the Godself which is that
self-actualized self that Maslow alluded to. Spirituality is not meant to be in
a box, a book, or the intellect. All of life is Spiritual and we should be conscious of its
presence to lead a concerted effort that ensures the utmost honesty and
integrity in the balance and healing of the body, mind, and Spirit.